diff --git a/vm/ai-env/ai.env b/vm/ai-env/ai.env
index 8f9818e..e81cb07 100644
--- a/vm/ai-env/ai.env
+++ b/vm/ai-env/ai.env
@@ -8,6 +8,8 @@ DISCORD_APPROVER_ROLE_ID=
 # Discord message language of the hitl bot: en or ja (runbooks and prompt free text are written in Japanese)
 HITL_LANG=ja
 # experiment design 11.1: candidates gpt-6-astra / gpt-6.1-sol / gpt-6-luna (OpenAI model page 2026-10-08). luna for the first live checks and campaign (budget), compare with sol afterwards
+# default when a campaign does not name a model. Since apps 53ff243 the harness passes the campaign's model on every /diagnose
+# (console "model" field); ids starting with claude- go to the Claude Messages API (secret selfheal-anthropic-api-key).
 OPENAI_MODEL=gpt-6.1-sol
 EMBED_MODEL=text-embedding-3-small
 HARNESS_URL=http://10.20.0.11:8080
diff --git a/vm/ai-env/apply.sh b/vm/ai-env/apply.sh
index 80494a4..7342e43 100755
--- a/vm/ai-env/apply.sh
+++ b/vm/ai-env/apply.sh
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 # AI VM (10.20.0.12), experiment design 6. Idempotent: first boot (startup script) and `make vm-sync` / `make ai-sync`.
 # Secrets come from Secret Manager through the VM service account (Terraform design 6.11):
-#   selfheal-openai-api-key, selfheal-discord-bot-token (registered by the operator), selfheal-k8s-ai-token, selfheal-k8s-ca-cert (make token)
+#   selfheal-openai-api-key, selfheal-anthropic-api-key, selfheal-discord-bot-token (registered by the operator), selfheal-k8s-ai-token, selfheal-k8s-ca-cert (make token)
 # The two operator secrets may not exist yet: the services then start degraded (agent /diagnose 503, hitl without
 # gateway) and this script still succeeds, so the VM can be verified before the keys arrive.
 # Non-secret settings (Discord IDs, model) are in ai.env (committed); AWS role ARN comes from instance metadata.
@@ -20,12 +20,13 @@ SEC=/opt/selfheal/ai/secrets
 mkdir -p "$SEC"; chmod 700 /opt/selfheal/ai "$SEC"
 umask 077
 secret selfheal-openai-api-key    > "$SEC/openai-api-key"
+secret selfheal-anthropic-api-key > "$SEC/anthropic-api-key"   # Claude Messages API (claude-* model ids); optional until registered
 secret selfheal-typesafe-api-key  > "$SEC/typesafe-api-key"
 secret selfheal-discord-bot-token > "$SEC/discord-bot-token"
 secret selfheal-k8s-ai-token      > "$SEC/k8s-token"
 secret selfheal-k8s-ca-cert       > "$SEC/k8s-ca.crt"
 unset TOKEN
-for f in openai-api-key discord-bot-token typesafe-api-key; do [ -s "$SEC/$f" ] || echo "note: secret $f is empty (not registered yet); service runs degraded" >&2; done
+for f in openai-api-key discord-bot-token typesafe-api-key anthropic-api-key; do [ -s "$SEC/$f" ] || echo "note: secret $f is empty (not registered yet); service runs degraded" >&2; done
 for f in k8s-token k8s-ca.crt; do [ -s "$SEC/$f" ] || echo "note: $f is empty (run make token on the operator host)" >&2; done
 chown -R 10002:10002 "$SEC"; chmod 600 "$SEC"/*   # agent/hitl run as uid 10002
 
diff --git a/vm/ai-env/compose.yaml b/vm/ai-env/compose.yaml
index 61efec9..81f8127 100644
--- a/vm/ai-env/compose.yaml
+++ b/vm/ai-env/compose.yaml
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ services:
       RAG_DSN: "postgres://ai:${RAG_DB_PASSWORD}@rag-db:5432/ai?sslmode=disable"
       HITL_URL: http://hitl:8081
       OPENAI_KEY_FILE: /run/secrets/openai-api-key
+      ANTHROPIC_KEY_FILE: /run/secrets/anthropic-api-key
       JEV_KEY_FILE: /run/secrets/typesafe-api-key
       K8S_TOKEN_FILE: /run/secrets/k8s-token
       K8S_CA_FILE: /run/secrets/k8s-ca.crt
diff --git a/vm/ai-env/image.tag b/vm/ai-env/image.tag
index 61579d3..e894199 100644
--- a/vm/ai-env/image.tag
+++ b/vm/ai-env/image.tag
@@ -1 +1 @@
-fa9c08c
+53ff243
diff --git a/vm/harness/image.tag b/vm/harness/image.tag
index 40703f6..e894199 100644
--- a/vm/harness/image.tag
+++ b/vm/harness/image.tag
@@ -1 +1 @@
-f8e0aa9
+53ff243